


Please Accept This Devotion

by gaygreekgladiator (ama)



Series: Your Body is a Temple [1]
Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Body Modification, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Tattoos, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 17:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/gaygreekgladiator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Auctus wants to make it one-hundred-percent clear that he loves Duro, absolutely, completely, for real, forever. Marriage is one solution, but it just doesn't feel like enough, you know?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Accept This Devotion

**Author's Note:**

> First of all: This is the second work in the series I've been referring to as the "Organic AU" on tumblr. I have not posted the first piece yet. Bottom line: Auctus is an uber-organic tai chi instructor and owner of a locally-operated vegan smoothie/juice bar called Swirls. Duro is a carnivore with a passion for body modification. Somehow they fall in love.
> 
> Secondly: There is a reference in this fic to Agron's tattoos and which is explained in more detail in my fic "Ink and Skin," which takes place in the same general universe, though it's a separate 'verse on AO3 because the main pairings is Nagron, not Ducky.
> 
> Okay cool, enjoy.

They’re at Barca and Pietros’s wedding—well, the reception anyway, which is basically a barbeque on their roof, which Auctus thinks is a pretty stupid thing when there are people drinking, but any attempt to point such out to Barca results in a slew of “you’re just jealous” jokes because Barca gets really freaking bubbly when he’s hopped up on alcohol and love—when Auctus proposes.

Everyone has found a seat, and Naevia is in the middle of her speech about how much she loves Pietros and how happy she is to see him happy. Auctus looks over at Duro, sitting right next to him, his expression open and sweet. His hand is resting on Auctus’s bad knee, rubbing circles with his thumb. Auctus thinks _I’m always going to love him_.

Then he panics, because he’s supposed to be giving a speech about how much he loves Barca and how happy he is to see him happy in about thirty seconds, and Barca would absolutely kill him if he interrupted their wedding to make a very public proposal, but he is way too full of love and devotion at the moment to wait.

He snatches a pen from his pocket and scribbles a note on the nearest surface—a cheap paper napkin, the corner spotted with drops of beer. He slides the note across the table and stands. Just as he begins his _hilarious_ retelling of Pietros and Barca’s first date (which coincidentally is also the story of Auctus and Barca’s break up), he feels the tug that indicates Duro has taken the note.

Auctus wills himself not to look down or cut his speech short. When Barca throws a hot dog roll at him, however, he acknowledges that his time is up. He sits down and looks at Duro, who is grinning wider than Auctus has ever seen.  Duro leans closer for nothing more than a quick peck and pushes the rumpled napkin back towards him.

_\--I know this is horrible timing, but I love you and I want to marry you._

_\--you are such a sap  
        yes._

-

“Duro…”

“What?”

“Duro!”

“What?!”

“Stop that! You can’t—you can’t—”

“On the contrary, I think I have to. You have grounds for divorce if you don’t get blown after you propose. I can’t believe you’re already trying to sabotage us.”

“Not at Barca and Pietros’s _wedding_. Stop—stop _groping_ me! Jesus Christ, anyone could just walk around and see us!”

“So? I’m pretty sure that sex as a wedding is expected.”

“Your _brother_ could walk around and see us.”

“All right, you win. Boner killed. Well, mine is. Yours is not. Interesting.”

“…Let’s not discuss this now.”

“Let’s not discuss this ever.”

“I love you.”

-

“Okay, okay, hold on,” Pietros says, struggling to control his laughter. Barca intervenes.

“SHUT UP,” he bellows, and Pietros lays a fond hand on his arm.

“Now, as you may have noticed, there is no bouquet—but fear not! Naevia has oh-so-graciously provided us with the next best thing.”

He beams and holds up a beautiful, golden-yellow sunflower. Everyone knows that sunflowers are his favorite—Barca buys him some twice a month, and they’ve all teased him about that at one time or another.

“Ours,” Duro muttered in Auctus’s ear.

“Yep.”

“So we’re going to have a gender-neutral flower toss—stay away from the edges of the roof, _please_ , because I really don’t think you’re all sober enough to be doing this—”

“Hear that, Agron?” Donar calls.

“Haha, fuck you, I’m happily married. Someone should pin Gannicus down.”

“I am not going to kill myself over a flower,” Gannicus says contemptuously. “The love of a beautiful woman, on the other hand,” he adds, leaning over to twist a lock of Saxa’s hair around his finger. She snorts and shoves him away. The two of them have been drinking since before noon, and wisely decide to remain in their seats as the rest of them push some furniture around a bit.

The unmarrieds crowd in the center of the roof. Pietros and Barca kiss—to moans and groans and wolf-whistles—and turn around, each holding on to the flower with one hand. Agron loudly leads the cheer of “One, two, three!”, and the flower  flies in a wide arch right towards Lugo.

At least, it _was_ heading towards Lugo, until Duro throws himself into a flying leap and tackles him to the ground, at which point Auctus nimbly steps forth and plucks it from the air.

-

One night, a few days later, they go over to Agron and Nasir’s  for dinner—out of the four of them, Agron is easily the best cook—and Nasir works out the story inside of five minutes. Auctus is kind of scared and impressed, and Duro assures him that having Nasir as a brother-in-law never really gets any easier.

Agron takes it upon himself to play the threatening parent, and within the next twenty minutes, Duro and Auctus manage to plan out their entire lives—no kids, a dog (pit bull or greyhound, rescue, depends on what comes up), a house in five years if finances permit, staying in town for the foreseeable future, Duro will of course get stock options if Swirls ever becomes that valuable, and Jesus Christ Agron, Duro will try to actually put his music degree to use once he finds a fucking job that allows him to do that and Auctus will support him in that decision and will you please stop bugging him about it already?

For one blissful moment, they think that Nasir is going to make Agron settle down, but really he’s just joining in. By the time they leave the apartment, they’ve found a beach in Cape Cod that has free bookings next August, a kind of organic, free-trade cocoa cake that both of them will actually eat, and a purple-grey vest that Nasir bought a week ago that is too big for him but looks so fantastic on Duro that Auctus immediately agrees to base the entire color scheme around it.

Auctus is feeling very dazed and vaguely happy on the way home, until Duro wonders aloud whether Nasir was doing that as a brother who wants to see them happy or a professional who wants to get paid. Nasir is a top-dollar event planner; they’re not sure if they can afford him.

-

A few weeks later is the anniversary of their first date. It’s the last time they’re _really_ going to celebrate it, and they end the night with old horror movies and beer on their kitchen couch, which is really the perfect way to end a date. Auctus settles into Duro’s shoulder and enjoys the soft tug of hands in his hair, and then Duro says “I’m so fucking lucky.”

“Mm?”

“I’m lucky. I mean goddamn, if you had told me a couple of years ago that I would be celebrating an anniversary with you… honestly, I didn’t think I would get a second date.”

“Of course you were going to get a second date,” Auctus says with a smile, murmuring the words against the skin below Duro’s ear. It’s soft and sensitive and Duro squirms a little when Auctus brushes over it. “After the way the first one ended, I owed it to you.”

“You didn’t owe me anything, but you still… I dunno.” He shrugs and stretches, opening himself up to Auctus’s attention. “I’m just grateful, is all.”

“ _Grateful_?” Auctus repeats, and his voice is sharp.

“Yeah, grateful. I mean—” Duro laughs. “—you were so unattainable when I first met you, you know? You were this sexy, sophisticated, smart guy who was so fucking gorgeous that I was like drooling, and I tripped over my tongue every time I tried to talk to you. Honestly, sometimes I still don’t get it. I don’t understand how I got this lucky.”

Auctus has no idea what to say. He knows that he should say _something_ , because this… it’s not okay. It’s not _right_ —they’re fucking engaged, for Christ’s sake, Duro shouldn’t be having doubts about how much Auctus loves him.

“I love you,” he says, suddenly worried that he doesn’t say it enough. He repeats it over and over again, pressing the words into Duro’s chest, down his _fucking gorgeous_ body until he needs to stop to unbutton his jeans. It’s just a temporary solution, he knows, and he resolves to come up with a more permanent option, but for now he tries to put every bit of love into the best blowjob Duro’s ever gotten. His efforts appear to be appreciated.

-

Auctus has been keeping the napkin in his pocket for two weeks when he gets an idea.

-

“I need to book an appointment,” Duro says idly one morning.

“Hm?” Auctus says. He’s flipping through a copy of Bride, which (heterosexism aside) has some very good decorating suggestions that he should find a way to mention to Nasir without offending his professional sensibilities, and sipping his tea while Duro steadily makes his way through sweet potato homefries and a poached egg (Auctus’s breakfast, minus the “really fucking horrible, how can you eat that?” grapefruit), plus bacon and Nutella on toast and half a cantaloupe. It’s vaguely disturbing, so Auctus hasn’t been paying attention.

“Appointment with Jean,” Duro clarifies.

He pops the last bit of cantaloupe into his mouth and holds out his right forearm. The space from his elbow to his wrist is taken up with an enormous and extremely accurate tattoo of a classic sword, with the bisexual moon symbol on the hilt. Duro had gotten it at the same time Agron got his shield, which Auctus thinks is a lot less badass and a lot more adorable than either one of them like to acknowledge. On either side of it, and in the background, three wolf paw prints trail across his skin—one for his mother, one for Agron, and one (newer than the others) for Nasir. Every member of his family.

Auctus pictures another one, high on Duro’s wrist where it can be seen at all times, poking out from under long sleeves on the rare occasions that Duro wears them, even visible in the slim gap between coat sleeves and winter gloves. He smiles to himself and continues to read.

“Is that all right?” Duro asks awkwardly. “That I get a tattoo for you?”

“It’s your body, babe, you don’t need my permission.”

“I know, but… I mean, it’s kind of pointless to make a romantic gesture if you don’t find it romantic.”

“I like your tattoos,” Auctus admits idly. Duro’s eyebrows fly up.

“Louder.”

“No.” Auctus stands and starts to clear away the dishes. “Make the appointment—and is it okay if I come?”

Duro looks thoroughly bemused.

-

Duro’s favorite tattoo artist is a 50-year-old woman with full sleeves, “love” and “hate” on her knuckles, wings on the back of neck, and lord knows what else. Her name is Jean, and Auctus isn’t sure whether he loves her or is terrified of her.

“This fucker,” Jean chuckles to herself as she starts to prepare the needle. “Has he told you about this? This fucker comes in for his first tattoo, 16 years old, with his goddamn brother saying that yeah, he’s got the permission of his legal guardian—and of course I did Agron’s tattoo about a month before that, so you can picture my reaction when I hear that he’s the legal guardian of _anything_ , let alone a goddamn human being—and he’s a skinny little sucker at this point—”

“Man, you talk too much,” Duro complains. Auctus shushes him.

“—and we get ’im on the table, roll him over, and there are goddamn bed sores all over his fucking back! Bed sores! You know what this little shit tells me? He says he just got out of a _motherfucking coma_. In a motherfucking coma for a week, out of the hospital two goddamn days and he says he wants a tattoo to commemorate the experience. Top of the back, too, what’d it say?”

“ _I’ve come too far to fade tonight_ ,” Duro recites. “And if you’ll notice, it’s more than a decade later and I haven’t asked you to cover it up, so d’you seriously have to tell that to everyone who’s ever in the store with me? Now make with the new one, old lady, I want it done before I’m your age.”

“Hey, I’m just giving this one time to change his mind,” Jean says with a toothy grin, jerking her head in Auctus’s direction. “This is permanent, you know.”

Auctus laughs and waves his hand in a ‘proceed’ gesture, and the artist bends over Duro’s arm. Her hands work with expert precision as she traces the line of ink on skin, occasionally pausing to blot the blood. Duro watches her progress with seeming indifference. He doesn’t even wince. That’s something Auctus has learned about Duro—no matter how goofy he may seem, the man doesn’t ever back down from pain. It’s a kind of nobly-inspired masochism.

Duro looks up at him and grins.

“Is this freaking you out?”

“No, it’s… no.”

“It doesn’t even hurt, not really. Have you ever given blood?”

“No.”

“I have—before I lost my guy-virginity. It’s kind of like that, but it actually doesn’t hurt as much, because it’s not going deep or anything.”

“Arms are easy,” Jean adds. “No bone, all fat.”

“Muscle, Gene, it’s all muscle.”

“Man, whatever you want to fuckin’ believe.”

In the end, it takes less than an hour to finish. Duro shows it off to the guy behind the counter, Jean takes a picture for the shop’s Facebook page, and Auctus causes a minor controversy when he insists on paying.

“We’re out of that moisturizing crap you need,” he lies. “There’s a CVS across the street—go pay for that.”

Duro grumbles, but Auctus will not be moved. As soon as Duro leaves the room, he turns to the counter, pays, and then gestures to get Jean’s attention.

“What’s up?” she asks cheerfully.

“Do tattoos take longer to heal on different parts of the body?”

“Depends, man… Feet, hands, and genitals are a bitch, but mostly it depends on _what_ it is, you know?” There must be something in Auctus’s face that gives him away, because the woman leans forward with a sly smile. “What’re you thinking about?”

“Lettering. Here,” Auctus says, tapping his chest.

“Like—whataya call them?—bubble letters? Thick?”

“No, just like normal writing.”

“Ah, that’s easy. A week and a half, tops, as long as you treat it right.”

Auctus takes a deep breath and flashes a feeble smile.

“Okay. I’ll see you on June third, then.”

-

On June third, Auctus convinces Nasir to convince Agron to take Duro on a brotherly bonding weekend, ostentatiously because one or both of them would have a nervous breakdown if they didn’t have a little bit of space. It’s a very plausible explanation, and Agron and Duro depart with cheerful goodbyes and a complete lack of suspicion.

Unfortunately for Auctus, he has underestimated Nasir again. It takes him about three minutes to worm the truth out of Auctus, two minutes to tell Chadara, forty-five seconds for Chadara to tell Naevia, five seconds for Naevia to tell Pietros and Diona, a minute and thirty seconds for Pietros to tell Barca, and fifteen seconds for Barca to tell Crixus, Donar, Spartacus, Varro, Gannicus and Oenomaus.

Auctus walks into the tattoo parlor with a kind of honor guard surrounding him, and Jean laughs herself silly at the sight. It could be worse, Auctus reminds himself. They could have told Saxa or Lugo.

“We need to preserve this for posterity,” Crixus insists, turning his camera phone so he can catch every angle of Auctus’s discomfort. “Who would have thought it would ever, ever, ever happen?”

“Wouldn’t if it were me,” Barca grumbles good-humoredly, and Pietros squeezes his hand fondly.

“Hush.”

“While we’re here…”

“No needles,” Pietros says with a bit of a shiver.

“Hey, if Auctus can take it—”

“Would you like to marry Auctus?”

“Don’t scare me like that.”

“I hate you all,” Auctus declares.

“Relax,” Nasir orders. As Auctus’s soon-to-be-brother-in-law, he has been given the place of honor in the chair by the table. The others are huddled around him, except for Diona, Oenomaus, and Varro, who have the good sense to realize that one tiny tattoo parlor can’t hold all of them. They’re waiting at a restaurant down the street and working on getting a dinner table for thirteen people. “You’ll be fine—the chest really doesn’t hurt that much. As long as you remember to breathe. Seriously. _Breathe_ , Auctus.”

Auctus takes a shaky breath as Jean leans forward and presses the stencil to the patch of clear skin. She holds up a mirror for Auctus’s approval. Auctus’s breath catches again at the sight.

“Good?”

“Perfect.”

Chadara makes a halfway disgusted noise, but Auctus ignores her. Nasir grasps his arm supportively, and the way he moves exposes the corner of his own tattoo, stretching out from under his wide-necked shirt. The tattoo is larger and more detailed than Auctus’s, and he was younger when he got it. That helps. He breathes deeply as the needle touches his skin.

-

The night before the wedding, they’re sitting in separate rooms of a Cape Cod hotel. Auctus has hung his cream-colored suit on the back of the door and double-checked the schedule and trailed his fingers over the petals of his boutonniere a hundred times. He tries to run through his favorite tai chi forms, but the room is too small, and he tries to do yoga but he has no idea what he’s doing without Oenomaus there to guide him. Eventually he decides to settle in and have himself a nice little nervous breakdown, and that is when the phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

Duro’s voice is scratchy over the phone, and Auctus thinks about how he sounds when he’s woken up in the middle of the night, the way he slurs the edges of his words and the way he croaks out single-syllable words punctuated with curses.

He glances at the clock. Sixteen hours.

“Hey. Can’t sleep?”

“You’re freaking out, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Can I come over?”

“Chadara’s going to kill you.”

There’s a click. Auctus puts the phone down, and a few minutes later there is a knock on his door—a loud, brash knock, and he almost giggles as he goes to answer it.

“Don’t wake the whole floor,” he says, biting back laughter. Duro shoves his hands in his pockets and grins, rocking back on his heels.

“Happy wedding day.”

Auctus leans forward for a kiss.

“Happy wedding day. Why are you still up?”

“You know I can never sleep before a big event,” Duro says with a shrug as he waltzes into the room.

“Even when it’s your wedding and you need to be conscious?”

“Especially then. Don’t worry—I probably won’t crash for at least twenty more hours. I’ll survive the reception.”

“Twenty hours isn’t nearly long enough,” Auctus declares. Duro flops on the bed, and Auctus stretches out next to him. “The wedding night doesn’t even start for another twenty-one, at least.”

“Babe, if I don’t last the wedding night it’s going to be because of handjob week,” he grumbles.

Oh yeah. Auctus had had to come up with _some_ way to keep the tattoo a secret for two weeks. The first week was easy; the second had taken some creativity, hence the sudden reappearance of his “Catholic guilt” which made him reluctant to engage in anything but the most vanilla of all sexual acts for the week leading up to his wedding. It’s complete and total bullshit, of course, but Duro doesn’t know the difference between a cardinal and a cardinal, so it’s worked out pretty well.

“Mm, sorry…”

“Don’t be sorry.”

Duro leans forward, and Auctus is enchanted by the dark fluttering of the shadows cast by his eyelashes. The first touch of their lips is so unbearably soft that he almost pulls away, but Duro’s head is at the back of his head, pulling him closer, and he loses his balance. He falls on top of Duro and accidentally scrapes his lips with his teeth. Duro groans, and Auctus _wants_ desperately.

His fingers grasp Duro’s shoulder then flex helplessly, not wanting to leave marks. Instead, he hooks one of his legs over Duro’s and rolls them over. His whole body is thrumming with the wonderful heat of contact, and he can’t keep his hands from touching everywhere he can reach. Breathless, Duro shoves his hand under Auctus’s shirt and yanks up. Auctus has enough to sense to shove him away, and Duro _whines_.

“Please, Auctus? C’mon, we don’t even have to have sex—but I haven’t seen you naked in over two weeks! _Two weeks_. Do you know how fucking hard this has been for me?”

Auctus files this away as useful information for their coming marriage. Neither one of them could ever survive a sex boycott, but he could easily use lack of nudity as a way to win arguments, the same way Nasir uses yoga pants to manipulate Agron.

“No, it’s not that,” he says, breathing heavier than he should be after five minutes of semi-heavy petting. “It’s just—there’s a reason for that, okay? I want it to be a surprise.”

“ _It_?” Duro chuckles. “Don’t tell me they make clip-on nipple rings. Face it, man, yours are _never_ going to be as sensitive as mine.”

Auctus swats at his head and wiggles out of Duro’s grip.

“I tried to hold out—remember that.”

“Uh huh.”

Duro’s eyes are fixed greedily on the bottom of Auctus’s shirt, and he honest-to-God almost drools when Auctus reaches up and tugs it off in one swift movement. Duro looks up, as appreciative and predatory as he was the first time they slept together, and then he does a double-take. His eyes widen.

“Holy fuck. That’s—that’s henna or something, right? Temporary?”

“No.”

“Holy fuck. Holy shit-eating Jesus, Auctus. Are you _fucking_ serious?”

Auctus frowns. He wasn’t expecting this kind of reaction. Duro looks completely dumbstruck.

“I’m serious. Do you not like it?”

“Please. Have you seen me?”

Duro gestures vaguely at his arm, chest, and back—and okay, yes, that was probably a stupid question—and leans forward to investigate the small, three-letter tattoo etched in dark brown ink over Auctus’s heart. In loopy, sloppy letters, it reads _yes._

“This is my handwriting,” Duro says weakly. He honestly sounds like he’s going to faint.

“I had Jean trace it from the napkin.”

Duro tackles him, and suddenly Auctus can’t breathe. He can’t even kiss back, really—he just kind of lays there and waits for Duro to come up for air.

“You don’t even _like_ tattoos.”

“No, but I love you.”

“Explain,” he demands. Auctus shifts uncomfortably.

“I started thinking about it after our anniversary. You sounded—you sounded as though you honestly didn’t believe sometimes that I loved you.”

He breaks off at the horrified look on Duro’s face.

“Please don’t tell me that’s the reason you go this. I was half-drunk and it was our anniversary, Auctus, of course I was feeling melodramatic!”

“Not the only reason. That was just when I realized that I don’t tell you often enough how much I actually care. I can’t—I can’t speak sometimes, honestly. I’m worse with words than you are—don’t laugh, I’m serious. Even when you babble, you always make sense, you always say what you feel, and I don’t. I’m better at showing you, and this is my way of showing… every day, for the rest of my life, I want to remember how happy you made me in this moment, how much I loved you and how relieved I was that you loved me back.”

Duro’s grinning so hard that it looks like it hurts.

“In fifteen hours, I’m getting married to the hottest, smartest, sweetest, most romantic fucker on the East Coast.” He knocks Auctus flat on his back again, and somehow they’re naked without Auctus knowing how it happened. “Eat your heart out, soccer moms,” he mutters, and Auctus doesn’t even have time to ask what he means before he’s rendered incapable of speech.

-

The next day, they get married on the beach. Auctus walks barefoot across the sands, a vision in white (according to Diona), with his shirt unbuttoned as much as decently possible, at Duro’s insistence, to show off the tattoo. His mother comes even closer to fainting than Duro did, but Nasir—of course—is prepared to deal with that. He reaches the altar without a worry in his mind, and the only issue is actually tearing his attention away from Duro so he knows when to speak. Agron tears up a bit towards the end. Auctus almost drops the ring when he tries to put it on Duro’s finger. Duro can’t stop smiling.

Jean had told him, jokingly, that he would become addicted to going under the needle—she was 100% sure that she’d see him again, she had said. Auctus hadn’t believed her, but when Duro says, “Damn right I do,” and leaps forward without waiting for permission to kiss his new husband, he almost considers it.

“Congrats, guys,” Agron says loudly. “Hey, Auctus, is it true you almost passed out?”

“Shut the fuck up, Agron, they’re having a moment. God, sometimes I honestly can’t believe you—”

“A moment? It’s their wedding, they don’t _get_ to have a moment. There’s a hundred people here demanding their attention and you worked your ass off planning this thing.”

“Assholes, where’s the booze?” Saxa shouts. “Unless it’s a secret that I’m not _special_ enough to be let in on.”

“Fuck the champagne, where is the _godamn_ bouquet? You fuckers denied me love once but I am catching it this year!”

“Oh my God,” Auctus mumbles, just low enough for Duro to hear. “I’m related to these people now, aren’t I?”

Duro laughs.

“Unfortunately, it’s permanent.”


End file.
